I’m back …

Here we go again. The Citizen newspaper has kindly and courageously offered me a home for my column. My first tabloid! This is tremendously exciting.

Cut & Run appears for the first time today but will in future be published on Wednesdays.

Part of the deal is exclusivity – meaning I can’t spread the column around. It’s not on the paper’s website and it won’t appear on my blog. So if you want to read it, and you’d be an idiot not to, you will have to either buy the paper or subscribe to the newspaper’s e-edition. You can even pay for just a single copy. On, for instance, Wednesdays.

Well, I’m pleased for you that a newspaper, albeit that rag, The Citizen, has had the good sense to pick up a regular column from our favourite wordsmith. It’s a double-edged sword of sorts, Ben Trovato on the one side and the legacy of Eschelle Rhoode on the other. God help us if the two should slip and there be a commingling of the bloods. What sort of beast would emerge. The love child of Tom Cruise and Madam Mao perhaps? Heaven forbid, even Deildrin couldn’t save us! I wish you speedy success in the eventual overthrow of the established order! Viva revolucion, a la Ben Trovato! PeterG, Cape Town

I used to read your columns while spending the European winters in lovely, balmy Cape Town. But since last summer I’m back in Amsterdam, the Netherlands for good. There is no shop or kiosk in my home town where I can buy the Citizen, so there is no way I can read your colums unless I start flying to CPT every Wednesday…
Can’t you convince your new boss that publishing your colums on line 2 or 3 weeks after the original publishing date really won’t harm their paper? Please? P l e a s e…

Hi Fon. You’d be able to read the column if you subscribed. Is that not an option for you? You can even just pay R7 for a single edition – the one with the column in it. Here’s the link http://thecitizen.pressreader.com

And fair shout to them. In this craven, commercial World everybody needs to find, invent or steal new ways to pay the bills. Penury, shame and poverty are the alternatives. Not a pretty sight from any angle. Provided that your compensation package is fair and up to snuff I see no problem with the exclusivity proviso. But, the question begs asking; who holds copyright to the material? To my way of thinking, exclusivity has an expiry date. 6 months, a year, whatever. But, copyright must always vest with the creator/author. Am I being naive?

They sure have, Graeme. Quite astounding that the paper even managed to survive that madness 45 years ago. The only good that came out of it was that John Vorster had to resign. Then again, that paved the way for PW Botha. Swings and roundabouts.

I am disappointed. I would much rather the ANC sponsored a column from you on their website. You would reach a far wider audience to piss off. I cannot forget how The Citizen was conceived by f*****g the taxpayer to promote the agenda of the then ruling party.

what a dastardly thing to do to scumbags like myself who want , no, who need free stuff. Im deeply saddened that youve had to sell out to the running dogs of WMC capitalism in order to keep a Tafel Lager on the tafel

Hi Ben, I’m happy for you but sad that I will no longer be receiving your perfect analysis of our sorry state. I have a strong dislike of newspapers in general, the Citizen being no exception. Anyhow, best of luck for the future.

Happy for you Ben and Citizen subscribers, so sad for the rest of us, who breeds on social media, hahaha…
Perhaps you can through our movement a bone, on one of your future “blogs”. http://www.cmosa.org